To think that fly lady is a crock of shit.

For many a reason.1. Surely if your house is a real mess the best thing to do is pull on your trackie bottoms, scrape back your hair and blitz as much as you can. Not get dressed for dinner and spend half an hour shining your sink. 2. The best way to keep your house clean is to invent your own schedule that works well for you and your home and stick to that.3. The only hotspot that needs a regular swish and swipe is my husband's job. Iykwim.

Fly Lady is fantastic, especially if you are feeling overwhelmed. The thing about wearing lace-up shoes in the house, is that you are not tempted to just take them off and lay on the sofa. I got so much more done in my lace-up shoes than I ever did shuffling around in my slippers.

Oh, and they don't have to be your outside shoes. I bought a pair of plimsolls especially for the house and I never wore them outdoors.

I thought flylady was aimed at those who struggle with depression? In which case the little steps that seem so pointless and daft to you are actually very useful. As for doing a big blitz of the housework? That's like telling someone to run up Mt Everest.

solidgold the only thing I've cleaned is the sink but my house is much tidier.

Re the woman thing - if there was anyone but me, they'd be doing half. But there isn't. The buck stops here. If flylady's checklist makes that easier for me, where's the harm?Surely being an empowered woman is about making your own choices. I choose flylady to help me keep my home pleasant for me to live in and invite my friends to.

Yes, there are things not to like (shuddering at the thought of wearing shoes indoors) but it's working for me so that has to be a good thing

NannyOgg: Where to start? Reading, playing an instrument, seeing friends, playing with DC, painting, watching TV, organising a charity event or political campaign, sports, work, running around the garden yodelling... Almost everything is more interesting, more life-enriching and more important than housework, which is basically tedious repetitive shitwork that should be predominantly ignored. Yes, there's some stuff that needs to be done (washing up, laundry, occasional - ie once a month or so- hoovering) but most of it is pretty pointless.One of the biggest reasons to hate Flylady is its emphasis on women doing this shitwork and accepting that it's their destiny. There's nothing sacred, magical or empowering about scrubbing toilets, and the mark of status in every human society is being able to make someone else do the shitwork. It would be better to stop worrying so much about whether your curtains are spotless.

Also, the modern-day obsession with housework is really unhealthy. All this sanitizing and sterilizing and vast amounts of detergent and antiseptic is fucking both the environment and children's immune systems.

Well I came in at 7 this eveing from ft work, house a tip, dh and 2dc not home, so I stuck on the rice and... Shined my sink! Only looked at her site, signed up but never got the mails, but that one thing stuck and I shine my kitchen sink regularly. Makes me feel the place is "clean" (it's not).

I think she's alright. What's the harm? I'd LOVE a spotless house. ALL THE TIME

I am one of those people who really, really has not got these things sorted. I need the 'little steps' approach. I'm not mad on flylady, but suspect that's because I'm not Christian or a SAHM, have a pale carpet (not my choice, the previous owners put it in) that rules out shoes upstairs outside an emergency and have a tendency to do decorative tasks like shining the sink as procrastination to put off either more useful chores or work. UnFuck Your Habitat is a great alternative though, certainly from my perspective it's more realistic. Your mileage may vary.

It's not about having a spotless house,it's about having a house that isn't horrible to live in and that is clean enough and so that you can find things. Clothes don't wash themselves, meals don't plan and cook themselves, bathrooms and kitchen do need a certain amount of cleaning. Someone, male or female, needs to do a certain amount in the home to stop it getting to the point where you have to call in Kim and Aggie.

Most of the time housework doesn't need doing. All this stuff about dusting every day is bullshit and, like I said, a way to keep women too busy for them to develop real lives - the way people thing a messy home is some kind of moral failing in a woman but 'endearing cluelessness' in a man. You only need to clean things when they look or smell dirty. You don't need to be all that tidy as long as you can find what you want. There are so many more interesting and more important things to do than have a spotless house.

1. If your house is a real mess, some people don't know where to start and so they put it off. Or they do a big blitz, kept the place tidy for a couple of days, then let it go to shit again. Flylady advises you to beware of burning out.

2. I am a fairly intelligent person, but I am completely incapable of devising my own routine. I just don't see things that need doing until they've built up to unmanageable levels, or else I vaguely know what needs done but I get overwhelmed and end up doing certain things repeatedly, while ignoring other things that really need done.

3. Lucky you, but my house has lots of hotspots, like the pile of crap on the kitchen table, the pile of crap in the hall, etc

4. You are obviously not the sort of person Flylady is aimed at, good for you. If you are so good at devising your own routines effortlessly, then you are probably what she calls BO.

I think it's the sort of thing that can be helpful if you're feeling overwhelmed by the state of your house and don't know where to start.

And if it helps some people keep on top of things, there's nothing wrong with it. It's not like anyone's forcing people who don't like Fly Lady to follow her suggestions.

But I don't like the shoe thing either. My mum brought me up to take shoes off the minute I got through the front door to avoid tracking dirt into the house, so the idea of wearing proper shoes to clean a house just seems totally wrong to me.

I was put off by the get dressed including your shoes. Why would I want to wear my shoes all day especially if I don't pln on leaving the house. I also don't want to shine my sink. I have a water meter and if I washed up every time there was a dirty dish it would cost me a fortune

It's a bit like couch to 5k, in that it starts of slow to make it sustainable. It's all too easy to go all out & beast the house then a) you are exhausted and b) it lasts for about 3 hours then you are too demoralised to do it again. This forces you to go slow & create a routine. I don't do it myself but I like the idea